Sinecure

An Easy Job

1. A position requiring little or no work but giving the holder status or financial benefit.

When I told my counselor what I wanted to do and what my major was going to be, he could hardly hold back. He called Mass Communications a gut course. He said students who couldn't cut anything else chose that. I spent the next 40+ years learning about the public radio audience and creating content for that audience.

I joined in this effort a few years after it's genesis. After the launch of All Things Considered, but before the launch of Morning Edition. It soon became clear, to become a true community service, our focus had to be on the audience.

With the help of those who were already involved in developing this service, I learned about what motivated that audience to spend more time listening and learning what might motivate that audience to give. It was the basis that led to phenomenal growth in audience numbers and audience engagement.

A Community Effort

We started with thousands of listeners. We shepherded the system to millions of listeners worldwide.

It was a lot more work than either of us imagined, but I knew back then it was so much more than a gut course for college slackers who need to declare something, anything.

What we did, what we discovered, worked. I think of it as the launching pad for what's to come.

Community Service/Community Support

 

Who or what are you serving?

I was perusing audience shares in my market. I know, kind of geeky.  I noticed a public station I once competed with and then work for was going through a significant loss of audience share in our market. The drop seem precipitous, so I contacted the station's director (CEO). The response was a little defensive. "We're aware of the problem." "The PD is looking at the figures." We use three year trends." I'll give them that last one. I only saw four months of AQH share data. Their share is now around a half point. It once was around 2.5%. 

I was trying to share some cautionary advice about making  hasty changes. The response was odd. "We remain committed to Classical programming in Greater XXXXXX, and northern XX with our hosts." 

Maybe you're thinking, "Sounds right to me." They're on a glorious mission to educate America about classical music. It's the noble cause. What's missing from the response is mention of the audience and service to the community. I've worked with music directors and station managers who thought this way. They said, "What we need is more early music." "What we need more is more harpsichord music." What we need to ban baroque music from the air." "What we need is more Mahler on the air." My question, "Is this what the audience wants?" Their answer, "We're going to change the way the audience thinks about the music and how they use radio!" Really?

The Audience Decides

Your programming serves no purpose if nobody is being served. This station, with their huge signal, should have the classical audience pretty much to themselves. I'm not sure what's happening, but for some reason, they are losing that audience. I'm hoping the dismissive answers were just annoyance at my questions. I'm pretty sure they're working on improving their appeal to their audience. The folks who run this station are really smart people. I also hope that if you find yourself in the same situation, your response will be all about who you are serving, not what you are serving.

Nagging Questions/Public Radio

It's  A Personal

Medium

Does it make sense to replace regular programming with specials (lots of 'em) in and around holidays?

I like to think I've become a pretty typical listener. I tune in when convenient for me with the expectation I'm going to find what I come to expect. Instead, at times, I'm getting specials. It's not what I want. So...I tune out.

What's the Point?

I used to program that way. Specials in and around holidays used to give the regular staff a day or two off. It also gave producers a shot at airtime for their content. What's missing in this equation is the listener. 

Is there an assumption the listener is going to listen from beginning to end? If so, it's false. It's not the way we use radio. The listener's expectation is consistency. That consistency leads to loyalty. If you're measuring with PPM, it's easy enough to tell if the one-off special is having an impact.

I don't think it's working. 

Editorial Choices

Perhaps, if there was more promo real estate for fewer specials, the programming might work. Your gambling the content is of sufficient relevance to be appealing to your audience. Instead, focus on one or two specials, promote the hell out of it and see what happens. Your promotion strategy should include all platforms. After a few of these attempts you'll get a good idea of what works and what doesn't. I'm not hearing that. I tune in because something your scheduling consistently meets my needs. Then, out of the blue, it's not there. The special just seems to be filling space. I didn't know it was coming, I didn't hear the opening, and I have no clue as to what this is.

Ask yourself if you would replace All Things Considered for a special on the snail darter? If you program music, would you replace an hour with a special on crafting or decoupage? Why not? It's art, right? Would you program music so far outside your format that a listener tuning in halfway through would think they have found the wrong station or wonder, what's happening? 

There's nothing wrong with special content. Think audience first. Does this enhance the experience of my listeners? The answer has to be yes. Then, let them know what's coming.

Public Radio Dreams

Unsettling Dreams

I've had a series of unsettling and recurring dreams about my radio experience. 

The first one was based on true events. They were in commercial radio. The dream would revolve around not being prepared for the next event. In most cases the first stop set and beyond. What would happen in my dream was at the end of a music set or news segment. Nothing was prepared to go beyond that point. No music was pulled. No stories were set up to run. None of the spots for the stop set were pulled. This actually happened at two of the stations I work for. On my first shift, I was shown the board, the log and left to my own devices. The first break was a nightmare. The result was a really unsettled air shift for at least the first hour as I struggled to get ahead of the breaks.

The solution, I learned, was having the previous shift pull at least an hour's worth of material for the next shift. In some cases more than that. A great idea! I implemented the policy as soon as I moved up the management ladder.  I also required talent to show up an hour before their shift. That policy generated a lot of resistance. There are many who don't want to put in the effort. I still dream about getting in front of the control board and nothing is ready to go.

Nobody's Calling

Dream number two deals with on-air fundraising. In that dream I've spent weeks preparing for the fundraiser, setting strategy, tactics, goals, produced content (on-air and off-air) and lined up talent. The drive begins and nobody calls. Again, the dream is based on experience. In those early days of fundraising the audience was fractured and disloyal. Because of that, there weren't many listeners who qualified as core listeners. as a result, the on-air requests for funding would become more desperate as it became clear the goals were not going to be met. Reasoning and rationality outside the dream state revealed two problems. The programming created barriers to listening and so did the fundraising. I knew this, but that didn't stop the dream from recurring. I stopped dreaming about this after I stopped participating in pledge drives.

It's Baaaack?  

Recently I've had this dream where audiences are falling away. Public radio is losing its audience. Stations are going dark. Millennials and Boomers are listening less and as a result are less willing to support the programming. The core is getting their information fix from other sources, and they expect it to be free. Social Media is fracturing the audience. Creative people become discouraged and move on. The content, for the most part, is still great, but nobody is listening. 

Good thing this is only a dream. Like in the first two dreams, this is still a fixable situation. Like before, collaborations, partnerships, and creative solutions will allow public radio and media to continue to serve its audience and the community.

Why Weekends Don't Work

Think Audience

Ever think about why your public radio weekends don't seem to attract an audience? Look at your churn.

Look at the Numbers

Check out your Morning Edition Numbers. If you have a daily cume of 36K and an AQH of 12K, your turnover ratio on that particular day is 3 to 1. The audience churns three times. 

If your cume on a Tuesday between 6a and 7p is 70k and your AQH is 10k, your turnover ratio is 7 to 1. The audience churns seven time

If your cume on a Saturday from 6a to 7p is 50k and your AQH is 5k, your turnover is 10 times.  

If you cume weeknights is 35k and the AQH is 1k, your turnover is 35 to one. 

Delivering an Audience

Given these numbers, how effective is to place a program initiative during the evening or late in the day on Saturday or Sunday? If you have ever wondered why so many programs fail, it is because you're not delivering an audience to that program. 

And...consider what audience churn means to fundraising. If your audience is constantly churning, there is no loyalty to the programming. Your ability to raise funds from listeners diminishes. That's why it is so hard to raise member dollars at night and most of Saturday and Sunday.

What's the Hang Up?

It's pretty simple. That crazy quilt of patchwork programming is causing all sorts of seams and barriers to listening. Each program says hello and goodbye with theme music wrapped around the edges. About the time a program starts to build an audience, it's over. You're starting fresh with each new element.  Also consider that radio listening doesn't start conveniently at the top of the hour. Listeners are loading in and out all the time. Without consistency, building audience becomes difficult.